Manuel “Ed” Torres, a 67-year-old retired Santa Barbara County deputy probation officer, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a charge of felony theft of public funds for embezzling approximately $635,000 from the Santa Barbara County Probation Peace Officer Association between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2019.
According to the District Attorney’s Office, Torres also admitted the theft exceeded $500,000, the crime occurred while occupying a position of leadership, that he took advantage of a position of trust, and that the crime involved a taking of great monetary value.
Torres was the president of the probation officers union for more than 20 years. The embezzlement scheme was discovered during the Probation Department’s review of financial records following Torres’s retirement from his probation post in 2019, the same year he was replaced as president of the probation union and subsequently cut all ties with it.